The modern lifestyle continuously brings about changes in the needs and habits associated with consumption of foodstuff and beverages. Customized food and drink packaging containing single or limited number of servings is an example of how consumables are adjusted to meet the schedule, activities and habits resulting from the modern way of life. Further, the more a situation or activity is characteristic of modern lifestyle, the more the food or beverage packaging is customized to meet the requirements dictated by that particular situation or activity. For example, the packaging should fit precisely to the amount of beverage or food intake specified for that situation or activity. Particularly, small packaging of ingredients such as sugar, coffee powder, tea leaves, cream, soup powder or concentrate, are used for preparing a single or limited number of beverage or meal servings for relatively short traveling time.
In a further step, dry ingredients of a certain foodstuff or beverage are incorporated into utensils that are used to prepare and consume the serving. Exploiting an integral or designed volume within a utensil for storing ingredients for preparing foodstuff or beverage absolves the need for separate packaging of the ingredients. Such dual-purpose utensils provide a more economic, customized and convenient packaging solution, which is useful especially in situations requiring the handling of a small number of items.
The current literature offers various solutions for dual-purpose utensils, spoons in particular, each solution providing its own design for accommodating consumables within the utensil and dispensing them. The most common mode of including particular ingredients within a utensil is in the utensil handle. If a spoon is used, then the spoon bowl may also include part or all of the ingredients used for preparing the beverage or food serving.
US 2010/0116772 describes a dispensing utensil having a hollow space within the handle of a spoon for accommodating dispensable food ingredients. The top wall of the handle is pliable and can be easily removed, exposing the ingredients within the volume of the handle.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,675,482 describes a spoon bowl in communication with a syringe, such that the solution within the volume of the syringe is injected into the bowl.
In U.S. Pat. No. 8,091,242, the hollow handle of a spoon is divided in two by a partition extending along the longitudinal length of the handle. The top wall of the handle is pliable or attached to a hinge, which when peeled off or pressed, respectively, exposes the contents in the two parts of the handle cavity.
US 2012/0213891 describes a spoon having a bowl covered by a top covering. The bowl and top covering define a space for filling a mixture for preparing a beverage when immersed in a liquid. The covering is made of a porous material or designed in a porous fashion to enable diffusion of the mixture into the liquid and vice versa. The spoon may also comprise a hollow handle with internal space to accommodate ingredients for preparing beverages. Part of the wall of the handle is made of a water soluble polymer, shaped as round coverings spaced apart of each other around and along the wall. These polymer coverings dissolve when the handle is immersed in aqueous liquid for stirring, thereby releasing the content of the handle into the liquid. The wall of the handle may also be partitioned horizontally to accommodate more than one ingredient.
WO 99/44482 describes a spoon with a hollow handle, which incorporates consumable substance. The end of the handle, distal to the spoon bowl is in the form of a cork screwed to the handle. Removing the cork from the handle enables dispensing the content within into a beverage or food.
FR 2 622 424 describes a spoon having a hollow handle, which defines a space for accommodating food or powder ingredients. The handle and spoon bowl are covered by a single peelable covering, which when removed exposes the food or powder inside. The food or powder may then be dispensed into a food or consumable liquid in another utensil.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,830,222 describes a baby feeding spoon with a hollow handle, which communicates with the spoon bowl through a severable partition at the interface between the handle and bowl. The top cover of the handle is squeezable, which enables advancing the food into the spoon bowl by pressing on the top wall of the handle.
CN 202312636 and CN 20216110 describe spoons with hollow handles, having openings at the top or bottom of the handle, respectively. Thus the content within the handle may be dispensed by turning the spoon upside down in the first case or letting it out right to the spoon bowl in the second case.
The solutions detailed above are all aimed at exploiting the internal volume of an expanded handle to accommodate food and beverage ingredient ready to be dispensed upon use. Although in some of the designs, the handle may be partitioned to accommodate more than one type of ingredient, they do not provide a user with the convenience of controlling the order of incorporating these ingredients into a beverage or food or incorporating them at all. Additionally, the use of the internal volume of a handle requires that the handle be bulky in order to accommodate several kinds of ingredients at usable amounts. Otherwise, the handle cannot contain substantial amounts of such ingredients and the spoon may not be efficiently used for this purpose.
It is, therefore, an object of the present invention to provide a dispensing container, which resolves the problems arising from current designs of dispensing containers.
Yet, it is another object of the present invention to provide a dispensing container with separate compartments containing food or beverage ingredients, accessed and dispensed controllably, selectively and separately of each other.
This and other objects of the present invention will become apparent as the description proceeds.